Paris, 1900: a couple are horribly murdered by a masked man with a metal claw who rips their hearts out. The sole survivor and witness to the massacre is a young girl. Twelve years later in Rome a new wax museum is opened, whose main attractions are lifelike recreations of gruesome murder scenes. A young man bets that he will spend the night in the museum but is found dead the morning after. Soon, people start disappearing from the streets of Rome and the wax museum halls begin filling with new figures...

Rome, Esquilino, summer. Rossella returns to Rome after years of absence and returns to her home, rented to her friend Salvatore, the set designer. The woman is gripped by an evident depression and wanders around the city that she does not recognize and that no longer recognizes her. People have changed and Rossella finds no one capable of answering the obsessive question that has plagued her for some time: "How can I disappear?"